Help! – My Child is being naughty at school

1st February 2018

My daughter Nya is a good girl most of the time; she does like to push her luck and is very opinionated. Saying that I don’t feel like she’s ever been a really naughty child, especially not naughty at school. Which makes this new behaviour, so confusing? Even during her many years at nursery, we never had complaints of a blatant disregard to rules and expectations. She’s only been going to school for 5 months, in this time we’ve seen a big shift in her attitude and behaviour both good and bad.

Today when I went to collect her from school. Miss G; my daughter’s teacher, spots me, calls for my daughter and then summons me over. I think that whether you are a child attending school or an adult, you will always get that uncomfortable feeling in your stomach when a teacher calls you over. So I go over, in hope that Nya has done something so amazing that Miss G wants to share it with me.

This was not the first time I has been summoned by her class teacher! Over the last few weeks Nya had started being naughty at school, and acting really out of character. Last week she got a ‘naughty slip’ for digging up mud and throwing it at the building. Her teacher actually blamed one of her friends for her behaviour, and I later found out that they were no longer allowed to play together. I honestly didn’t think this would be an issue in a class of 4 & 5 year olds.

The school has a system called making the right choice; it’s pretty simple;

Good choice = A Green choice

Bad Choice = A Red choice.

I guess it’s to steer away from the good/naughty titles, and to encourage the child to think about the choices they are making. It worked really well when Nya first started school, she was very conscious of the choices she was making both in and out of school. One Saturday I picked her up from dance class and she was in tears, because the dance teacher had given her a red sticker for good behaviour. In her eyes red equalled a red choice…

Let’s fast forward back to today, where I had to listen to my daughters teacher telling me how naughty she had become. Nya had started making several red choices a day and today had made 3 big red choices, which resulted in her getting a ‘naughty slip’ sent home. They’re not actually called naughty slips, they are ‘choice reflection slips’ but let’s face it they are naughty slips. It turns out that today Nya, had decided to make a few wrong choices one being to purposely break the class blind. It’s so hard to know how to react; I find the whole process so frustrating and embarrassing.

Where did it all go wrong?

Obviously I know that a lot of parents will face something similar; but I really don’t want to hear that my child is being naughty at school, and then feel like I don’t know how to help or get her to improve. I know that shouting will not help, even though sometimes this is my natural reaction. After myself and Miss G had finished talking; I asked Nya how she felt about it, and she pretty much just burst into tears. I feel like it’s even harder to deal with, when they know what they’re doing is wrong but chose to do it anyway.

At this point I’m struggling with the right parenting balance…is just speaking to her enough? Explaining what she did wrong and that it is unacceptable and telling her how disappointed I am, or do I need to more? I honestly don’t know, as at this point nothing seems to be working.

My question is, what do you do when your child starts being naughty…how do you deal with it?

My daughter is 4, and is in reception and i have noticed a few times she has acted out from time to time, I think because out children are going through so much, with school and meeting new friends they are bound to test out what it is like and coping other children. thats how i see it anyway x

I’m facing a similar situation my daughter is three and just started nursery. She’s been pushing the other children. I was called over. I felt like a failure as a mother. I was so embarrassed. What do u say or do.